Saturday, 11 June 2016

Child of the 80's: Television

As I child of the 80's I (rightly) consider the 80's to be the best decade for entertainment. The music was brilliant, the movies were amazing, the fashion was... err, well lets skip that. But the enduring memory I have of the 80's is the TV shows that entertained me and I thought I would take you on a trip down memory lane with some of my favourite cartoons and TV shows that I loved as a kid.

Cartoons

He-man and the Masters of the Universe
The battle between good and evil on the planet Eternia was my absolute favourite. The ultimate hero He-man and his friends like Battle-Cat, Man-at-Arms, Teela and Orko battle the evil forces of Skeletor. What I remember most about He-Man is not just the show but that I had pretty much all of the action figures (they were NOT dolls despite what my Dad used to tell me). I would sit watching the show whilst acting out my own adventure with my toys. Looking back at it now it does seem that the show was a big advert for the toys with massive helping of homo-eroticism but when I watched a few episodes again recently it was still brilliant and brought back so many memories.

Thundercats

Another of my favourites was Thundercats, it is about of group of anthropomorphic cats lead by Lion-O who have to flee from the planet Thundera and arrive on a new planet called Third-Earth. When they arrive they find the evil Mumm-Ra and his minions are terrorising Third-Earth. I think the premise of Thundercats is brilliant, Lion-O has the mind of a child but in an adults body due to a malfunction of his suspension capsule when the Thundercats were travelling through space and has to learn how to be a leader. All of the characters are fantastic and Mumm-Ra has to be one of the best baddies of all time, also Thundercats has the best theme tune of any of the shows I used to watch.

Transformers

Transformers was another show I used to watch whilst playing with my toys, I would start with a car that looked a bit like a robot and somehow transform it into a robot that looks a bit like a car. Before Michael Bay got his hands on it and shoved Megan Fox and Shia Lebeuf down our throats I loved to watch the battle between he iconic Autobots lead by Optimus Prime and the evil Decepticons lead by Megatron. In this show I always preferred the Decepticons, Soundwave had a cool voice and even cooler helpers in the form of Laserbeak and Ravage, Shockwave was a badass laser connon but Starscream was my favourite, the treacherous jet-fighter was always trying to usurp Megatrons position as leader of the Decepticons.

Honourable Mentions

Some of the other cartoons I watched included Visionaries, Dungeons and Dragons, Bravestarr, MASK and Centurions.

TV ShowsThe A-Team
Action packed family fun. No one ever died, no one ever swore and the A-Team could knock up a tank with nothing more that a shopping trolly, some corrugated steel and motor powered by 2 AA batteries. Hannibal, Face, B.A. Baracus and Murdoch were a dream team of soldiers of fortune helping those in need whilst trying to clear their names.

Part game show, part fantasy series. Three friends would guide a fourth sightless dungeoneer around a computer generated medieval world. I'll never forget the time I nearly killed my sister whilst playing Knightmare as I guided her (whilst blindfolded) around our house and I got her to jump down the stairs, ah good times!

Honourable Mentions

I also used to love Quantum Leap, V, ALF, Red Dwarf and The Young Ones.

What were your favourite shows when you were kid? Let me know your memories of 80's TV.

OMG we used to play Knightmare too! We'd blindfold my littlest sister and every time she went into a room we'd say "OK, there's a bomb in the room" and then we'd be screaming "SIDE STEP SIDE STEP QUICK" to her, she'd get really scared but we'd never let her take her blindfold off!

They're making a live action film of Thundercats aren't they? We always used to fight over who got to be Cheetara!